High-speed rail in southern China

I’ve spent much of the week in Guangdong province in the Pearl River Delta region of China, and here is a short travel recommendation.

The high-speed rail service between Shenzhen (the port entry from Hong Kong) and Guangzhou is very efficient, fast and easy to use. Rail stations on both cities connect to the local subways, so it is also convenient.

I’ve taken the rail service three times in the past three days. The trains leave about every 15 minutes, so you are never long from the next departure. Rail travel takes about one hour and 20 minutes each way.

As you can see from the photos, the trains are quite modern. Top speed, far as I could tell, was around 180 kilometers per hour.

Subways in both cities are quite modern, although more costly than Beijing. A token yesterday in Guangzhou cost 4 kuai, or about 60 cents.

The only negative experience was last night in a Shenzhen hotel. We’d been at a Holiday Inn Express hotel in Shenzhen for two nights (about 50 bucks per room per night, a real steal) but they were booked up for the third night. So we went to a local hotel, the HongFeng, suggested by the travel company CTrip. The internet service sucked royally. Every five minutes, the signal would be cut and the hotel would ask me to sign on again. Moreover, barely half an hour from free Hong Kong, the internet controls were severe.

The next morning, when I went for breakfast at 8:30, they had no more service. They coughed up a few greasy things. No coffee. Ugh. I went back to the room to watch some of the Obama-McCain debate on the internet (no CNN in the hotel), the signal kept cutting off.

Comments

[a permenant hotel bum]

if you wanna go cheap in shenzhen.. its either home inn or 7daysinn. 200 RMB a night ($30). otherwise i rank the hotels as Sheraton > Marco Polo > Shangri La. Haven't stayd at the Intercontinental yet tho. They're building a Hyatt and Ritz Carlton... should be done by next year?

[ambrose]

If I were visiting Shenzhen, instead of just living here and had the money, I would stay at the Kempinski.
Maybe that is why we have so many Starbucks here in Shenzhen---most hotels' breakfasts (but not the Kempinski's!) leave much to be desired, from what I hear from out-of-town guests.